Fortune's stroke

"He can't," she said firmly. "He's stripped Bharakuccha of every siege gun he has. Those cannons-there are only five of them left, Kungas, by the way; one of them was destroyed recently, falling off a cliff-are the only ones the Malwa have in the Deccan. To get more, they'd have to bring them from the Gangetic plain, across the Vindhya mountains. That would take at least a year. And Emperor Skandagupta just informed Venandakatra, in a recent letter, that the Vile One will have to rely on his own resources for a while. It seems the war in Persia is proving more difficult than the Malwa had anticipated."

She leaned back, smiling. "He was quite irate, actually. Most of his anger was directed at Belisarius, but some of it is spilling over on Venandakatra. Emperor Skandagupta does not understand, as he puts it, why the `illustrious Goptri' is having so much difficulty subduing-as he puts it-`a handful of unruly rebels.' "

Everyone was staring at her, eyes wide open. Except Kungas, she saw. The Kushan was looking at her also, but his gaze seemed less one of surprise than Interest? Irene lowered her own eyes, plucking at her robes. For a moment, looking down, she caught sight of her nose.

Damn great ugly beak.

She brushed back her hair and raised her head.Envoy from Rome, she reminded herself firmly.

The wide-eyed stares were still there.

"Is your spy network reallythat good?" asked Holkar, a bit shakily. "Already?You've only been here for-"

He broke off, as if distracted by another thought.

Irene coughed. "Well…Yes, peshwa, it is that good."

She gave Shakuntala an apologetic little nod. "I was intending to give you this latest information at our next meeting, Your Majesty." The empress acknowledged the apology with a nod of her own.

Irene turned her gaze back to Kungas.

"So that objection to the Bhatasvapati's proposal is moot," she said. "But I confess that I have no idea how he intends to destroy the existing guns."

Kungas began to explain. Irene listened carefully to his plan. She was required to do so, not simply by her position as the envoy of Rome, but by the nature of the plan itself. At one point, in fact, the meeting was suspended while Irene sent for one of the Syrian gunners who had accompanied her to India, in order to clarify a technical problem.

So, throughout the long session, Irene was attentive to Kungas' proposal. But there was a part of her mind, lurking far back, which focused on the man himself.

When the session was over, and she was striding back to her rooms, she found it necessary to discipline that wayward part.

The envoy of Rome! Besides, it's absurd. I'm the world's most incorrigible bookworm, and he's an illiterate. Ugly, to boot.

Not long after arriving in her quarters, a servant announced the arrival of the peshwa.

Irene put down her book, a copy of thePeriplus Maris Erythraei, and rose to greet her visitor. She had been expecting Dadaji Holkar, and she was quite certain why he had come.

The peshwa was ushered into her chamber. The middle-aged scholar seemed awkward, and ill at ease. He began to fumble for words, staring at the floor.

"Yes, Dadaji," said Irene. "I will instruct my spies to search for your family."

Holkar's head jerked up with surprise. Then, lowered.

"I should not ask," he muttered. "It is a private matter. Not something which-"

"You did not ask," pointed out Irene. "I volunteered."

The demands of her profession had trained Irene to maintain an aloof, calculating stance toward human suffering. But, for a moment, she felt a deep empathy for the man in front of her.

Dadaji Holkar, for all the prestige of his current status as the peshwa of India's most ancient and noble dynasty, was a low-caste scribe in his origins. After the Malwa had conquered Andhra, Dadajiand his whole family-had been sold into slavery. Belisarius had purchased Holkar while he was in India, in order to use the man's literary skills to advance his plot against Venandakatra. In the end, Holkar had been instrumental in effecting Shakuntala's escape and had become her closest adviser.

But his family-his wife, son, and two daughters-were still in captivity. Somewhere in the vastness of Malwa India.

It was typical of Holkar, she thought, that he would even hesitate to ask for a personal favor. Most Indian officials-most officials ofany country, in her experience-took personal favors as a matter of due course.

She smiled, brushing back her hair. "It's not a problem, Dadaji. It will be an opportunity, actually. To begin with, it'll give my spies a challenge. The Malwa run an excellent espionage service, but they have grown too confident and sure of themselves. Quite easy to penetrate, actually. Whereas finding a few Maratha slaves, scattered across India, will test their skills."